Positive Reflection

Just found this on the internet whilst googling myself, as you do! I never knew it was videoed, let alone on line. I was presenting at an Arts in Health Conference, sharing some of the work I do with hospital staff and 5Rhythms. At the time I was quite harsh on myself as I find dancing much more my comfort zone than public speaking about dancing.  It felt like the audience wasn’t very responsive but seeing it now I can witness them engaging in the hand Wave and seemingly having some fun. It is always interesting to view oneself with perspective. Anyone else had an experience where post reflection was totally different to your memory of it at the time?

 

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beauty in the bird song

I’m currently teaching the 5Rhythm element map in a series in my garden studio. I love this Mandala it’s one of my favourites as it bonds us directly and profoundly with nature. Being in relationship with nature helps me stay present. It is a meditation of its own. During our dance with Earth/Flowing last week I was gifted with a message to ‘see what was in front of me’. I am practicing this. Being truly present to where I am in each moment and really seeing what is around me, what is in front of my eyes right now. In doing so I have heard so much bird song. it is so beautiful and magical. In the Seeing I have received and deepened my Listening. How good is that? Nature loves it when we listen to her. Here’s a little clip inspired by this week of dancing, seeing and listening. I love the windy trees outside……

turning suffering into art

some days are just hard. after a heavy day of crying, writing, crying, dancing, crying, music mixing and crying some more this was the outcome of the day that fully helped me shift gears.

 

When we can’t dance

I cannot imagine living in a country where dance is illegal

Or being part of a family that rejects dance as a life choice. Or being told that dance is only for a person of a certain gender or body type or abilty. WTF?

Like me, I know for you too that dance is a saviour. She is my life partner and I never see that changing. I usually dance every day. It’s like taking vitamins. But as we all know, sometimes we slip up or lose routine, travel or distractions eventuate in some missed dosage and before we know it something has slipped, Oh Yeh, I haven’t been dancing! This time it was knee surgery. No dance for a month then minimal easy return to the dance floor over two months. That’s a lot of missed vitamins. Pacing myself is most definitely a practice requiring conscious patience, trust and surrender. I’m still a beginner! You know that feeling when you completely surrender yourself to the dance with your whole body, mind and spirit. I want that. I miss that. I ache for that. What I have learnt is to be grateful for the movement I do have and to be present to what is moving now and to release expectations of what a ‘proper’ dance is. Basic general ongoing life practice stuff with an opportunity to deepen my experience through my current situation.

Sometimes we have to really miss something to know how important it is to us. Each time we come to dance it is a sacred offering. A creative moment in our lives to reconnect deeply with our essence, our truth and renew our vows of self acceptance, forgiveness and love.

In whatever way we can move, we can dance. We don’t need to wait to be stronger, happier, healthier. We don’t need to wait for the right class, teacher, song. Being in our bodies right now as they are is a sacred act. Showing up for ourselves takes courage and discipline. When we can’t dance is the most holy time to dance.

Big Love x

 

Step in, Step up

It is not only our rite but our responsibility to take our place in the circle. Each of us belong and have an important position, for without us the circle would not be complete. Some of us shy away and play invisible whilst others of us present boldly and stridently. We each  believe we are meeting ourselves and the world with our best foot forward, however, both methods exclude others and isolate ourselves and are not serving the greater good.

Our Circles need to be round and balanced to be whole and powerful. They require each of us to be aware we are vital components of the universal cell.  When we isolate we are not doing our part for the whole circle of humanity. When we meet ourselves in our full truth and potential we are uniting human evolution to its fullest potential and expanding group consciousness circle by circle by circle. Whatever circles you are in, step up, stand clearly, for you have a place side by side your warriors, healers, players, makers and activators.

Each of us is responsible to stand as we are, who we are and fulfil our place in the circle. It is not just our rite but our responsibility.

Dancing in the Darkness

As a 5Rhythms® teacher I tell myself that I need to have my shit together and be a strong, capable, evolved human that can move into and through anything that throws me off balance. I have a story that I ‘should’ be able to not get hooked into my stories and that I ‘should’ be able to see what’s really going on and have the capacity and skills to shift myself from negativity to positivity. Well, I guess I just demonstrated my weakness by admitting these ridiculously high personal expectations.

I am human. I fuck up. I get depressed.

“My mind is a dangerous neighbourhood I try never to enter alone”

Anne Lamott via Sweat your Prayers.

This Winter I have taught several darkness and shadow themed workshops. I have been riding a shady dragon into an abyss of the depths of my darkness, my aloneness, my pain and my unresolved life stories. I have allowed Winter to expose me like the leaf-fallen trees. Turning inward, I have sat vulnerable and cold in my ‘stuff’ and questioned if things will ever change? I have died over and over and left myself to rot in the decay that is my undoing. There is a comfort to recognising the bottom, to feeling the hard ground break the endless falling. It is almost peaceful to know that in the darkest chaos transformation awaits. I have travelled deeply into my darkness this Winter, I have remained committed to the task of seeing how far down I could go. I have stayed steadfast, neither straying or escaping. I have achieved greatness in the embodiment of ‘what’s wrong with me?’ I have witnessed great suffering. Thank goodness, I have danced. I have danced. I have danced. I have allowed myself to drown, to feel deeply, to wail. I have kept showing up to work, to hold space for others in my truth admist my own journey. I can be nothing more than who I am and sometimes all I have to offer is how I navigate through my own experience, partnered, held and liberated by my dance. Sometimes it’s all I’ve got and often it’s all I need. I dance in my darkness and I trust. I trust that this too will pass and I trust that sharing my process offers you something and that is my teaching and that that is enough. I trust in cycles, in the Wave, in my practice enough to dance in my darkness as long as it takes before I crack and a shard of light can penetrate. This ‘feeling deeply thing’ can be a lonely journey but I know I am not alone. Many of us ride our dragons solo into our Inner Winter Wastelands. Some of us don’t come back, some of us get lost, some of us find a short cut. As a seasoned traveller I can share the road with you. We can share the dance however you are. When you least feel like coming to class could well be when you most need to. I have no pretty images or uplifting quotes to add but I do have this song to share with you. I have danced with it many times these last few months.

Don’t stop dancing in your darkness. Your truth is radiantly beautiful.

See you on the dance floor X.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdoYYv8UMr0

“I believe in the power of motion 
the wisdom of gravity, the emptiness of true love, 
the fact that there is no way out but through the body 
no way up unless we all go together 
no way down unless we follow the beat 
no way in unless we embrace the dark

”

Gabrielle Roth

Moving

‘They’ say it’s one of the most stressful times and I guess that’s sort of true. Difficult for me to moderate as this particular move has been super complicated. Maybe it’s been too fast, maybe it wasn’t the right time, maybe I’m just getting too old to uproot. There have certainly been a lot of maybes to weigh up and it took me a year to decide. Something had to move. A decision had to be made and this was one of my hardest. I reached a point where the weighing up was making me crazy and I just needed to move. Move forward, move into the unknown, move into the change. Moving house and Moving states was the outcome of Moving stuff that had been sitting stuck. Indecision does not move. Change catalyses movement and movement catalyses change. Change is stressful and exciting and unknown. Change changes stuff. ‘When we move, our stuff gets rearranged.’ This applies to moving house and to when we move on the dance floor. ‘When we move, our stuff gets rearranged.’ The process of realigning after chaos brings growth, insight and new possibility. Only received by moving through the change. Moving house has this momentum that takes over and the only way out is through. Like when we dance a 5Rhythms Wave and we really surrender. If I can really give in to the dance the way I had to really give in to the process of moving house then I can fall deeply into the chaos, the mess, the everything all at once, the too much to handle, the uncontrollable, the losing my shit. And if I let go of all those balls I have in the air I can create an opportunity to transition, to reawaken, to re-wire, to renew. No wonder ‘they’ say it’s stressful. Trying to manage all that produces overwhelm and fatigue but if we keep moving with the momentum, move into the change and trust the Chaos, Lyrical will meet us eventually. Fingers and toes crossed!